At Google I/O this year, the tech giant announced a pair of new phones: the Pixel 3A and Pixel 3A XL. Though they share the names as the company's current flagships, the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, the Pixel 3A and 3A XL are cheaper, with fewer top hardware features.
Designed to look similar, both the Pixel 3A (left) and Pixel 3 have a lightweight, unibody design, a matte finish with a glossy shade on the back and a rear fingerprint reader.
Unlike the Pixel 3, the Pixel 3A doesn't have wireless charging, it's not water-resistant, it doesn't have a second wide-angle front-facing camera and it doesn't come bundled with PixelBuds earbuds.
What it does have is a headphone jack and you can get it from more carriers. In the US, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular will sell the phones. The phone works on AT&T's network too if you buy it unlocked, but you can't get it directly from the network.
On the front is an 8-megapixel camera and on the back is a 12.2-megapixel shooter. Again, the rear camera is the same as the one on the Pixel 3 phones.
The phone runs Android 9.0 and features Google Assistant, which you can launch by squeezing the phone's sides. Click through for more photos of the Pixel 3A.
New to the Pixel 3A XL (left) and Pixel 3A cameras is the ability to shoot time-lapse video. You can set your frames to record at certain time intervals and you'll see exactly how long your video will be in real time.
Though the Pixel 3A and 3A XL don't have as much high-end hardware as the original Pixel 3, Google still managed to make a solid, budget-minded phone. Compared with the more affordable flagship options of competitors like the iPhone XR and the Galaxy S10E, the Pixel 3A doesn't have features like water resistance or wireless charging. But if you want the latest software from Google and you want to take fantastic photos -- all at a few hundreds of dollars less than the other phones -- the Pixel 3A is worth considering.
